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Tell me about your Bossfights! What went right, what went wrong?
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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9241360" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>I'm now going to share the ABSOLUTE WORST BOSS FIGHT EVER*. D&D 4e. DM has us mow through a temple of evil cultists with very annoying powers (like At-Will Domination) and has us face their leader, the vampire-like cult leader who is bound to a tree that is fed on blood.</p><p></p><p>His mobility is somewhat limited as he has to remained attached to a branch of the tree, which we ruthlessly exploit, and after exhausting our Daily powers, he goes down.</p><p></p><p>Now at this point I need to interject something- previously, we had to gather pieces of this weapon that had been scattered across the land and we were told it was necessary to "destroy the root", ie, the tree and the cultists.</p><p></p><p>This weapon was actually several other weapons. When finding another piece, you could have the pieces you have merge with that one or vice versa (letting you choose the form of the weapon- in my case, I was a Halfling so I had it as a short sword) and the final weapon has all the powers of it's components. So at this point, it's a +3 Short Sword. It has two powers of relevance here. 1, it and whoever wields it are absolutely immune to any form of scrying or divination. 2, wounds it inflicts cannot be healed- something which never comes up.</p><p></p><p>Upon falling, the tree absorbs the leader and goes One-Winged Angel on us, as the DM announces his second form. We have nothing for resources and had no opportunity to take a short rest.</p><p></p><p>"Because he now has full hit points in his new form, I'll let you all recover a single Encounter power", the DM states, ever so magnanimously.</p><p></p><p>"Hey, uh, about that. The legendary sword, it means he can't heal, right? So does that have an effect?"</p><p></p><p>The DM flounders for a bit, reading his notes. "Ah no, he's not healing, it's an entirely new form." Right.</p><p></p><p>So he found this stat block online, a conversion of a Wormskull Horror from Earthdawn. Mm, homebrew, that could be trouble. And it's nasty. It gives us all a mystical Mark. I ask what that does, and he hands me a notecard.</p><p></p><p>"Creatures marked by the Horror can be scryed upon freely for a year and a day; the Horror can use a creature marked by it as the source of any of it's powers". Ok, that's really not good.</p><p></p><p>The creature also has some other odd powers like "Corrupt Karma", where if you spend an Action Point, it can curse you, an At-Will Interrupt where it can simply make another At-Will power do nothing (remember, at this point, At-Wills is pretty much all we have), and an At-Will Dominate (of course).</p><p></p><p>The Sorcerer gets Dominated into attacking the Ranger, and he rolls a critical hit. He's an Elementalist Sorcerer and hadn't yet used his Encounter that lets him increase his damage. The DM decides "oh yeah, you have to use that too". Erases the Ranger.</p><p></p><p>It's getting down to the wire and soon I'm basically the last one left standing. It's dazed so it can't use it's goofy interrupt. I attack and roll a 20, thinking, thank the dice Gods, it should die now and we'll succeed."</p><p></p><p>The DM says "nope, it has hit points left", and it then kills me. That's it, TPK, game over.</p><p></p><p>Naturally, we're all steamed. "Well, you weren't supposed to fight it, you were supposed to run away. I don't know why you all just kept trying to win."</p><p></p><p>"One, this wasn't telegraphed to us at all that it was unbeatable. I mean, we have the legendary weapon, right?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh well, there's still 2 more pieces to find."</p><p></p><p>"And two, we couldn't run."</p><p></p><p>"Huh, why?"</p><p></p><p>"You made it so that anywhere we go, for the next year, this thing can attack us with it's powers. And it can attack anyone nearby it with it's powers, making us a threat to anyone we come into contact with. So what, our option is to run and go hide in a cave for a year and hope it doesn't just kill us at will?"</p><p></p><p>"Uh...well...it wouldn't do that. Besides, it can't scry on you, that's why you have the sword!" The DM replies.</p><p></p><p>"He can't scry on ME, yes. Nothing about the sword prevents him from scrying on anyone else. So we had to fight, and you saying it wouldn't abuse it's bs power doesn't mean anything to our characters. If you wanted us to feel like we could run, you should have altered the power or not used it."</p><p></p><p>"Well, I mean, this boss is super important to the storyline, I couldn't let you kill it now anyways."</p><p></p><p>"Oh so instead, to save your oh-so-precious story boss, you killed all the player characters. Well have fun with your story." And I stood up and walked out. And everyone followed me.</p><p></p><p>There's no real moral here, other than some of the advice I give new DM's. First, the campaign cannot be more important than the players, or you may end up going through many players and run the risk of having no campaign. Two, if you don't want something to happen, don't let it be a possibility. If you don't want your super cool BBEG to die early, or to have the players TPK, don't put them in a situation where they fight each other! Have the BBEG teleport away cheaply or something, lol.</p><p></p><p>*I have no doubt others will say they have experienced worse, and it's probably true. But this was the lowest point for everyone who was at that table.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9241360, member: 6877472"] I'm now going to share the ABSOLUTE WORST BOSS FIGHT EVER*. D&D 4e. DM has us mow through a temple of evil cultists with very annoying powers (like At-Will Domination) and has us face their leader, the vampire-like cult leader who is bound to a tree that is fed on blood. His mobility is somewhat limited as he has to remained attached to a branch of the tree, which we ruthlessly exploit, and after exhausting our Daily powers, he goes down. Now at this point I need to interject something- previously, we had to gather pieces of this weapon that had been scattered across the land and we were told it was necessary to "destroy the root", ie, the tree and the cultists. This weapon was actually several other weapons. When finding another piece, you could have the pieces you have merge with that one or vice versa (letting you choose the form of the weapon- in my case, I was a Halfling so I had it as a short sword) and the final weapon has all the powers of it's components. So at this point, it's a +3 Short Sword. It has two powers of relevance here. 1, it and whoever wields it are absolutely immune to any form of scrying or divination. 2, wounds it inflicts cannot be healed- something which never comes up. Upon falling, the tree absorbs the leader and goes One-Winged Angel on us, as the DM announces his second form. We have nothing for resources and had no opportunity to take a short rest. "Because he now has full hit points in his new form, I'll let you all recover a single Encounter power", the DM states, ever so magnanimously. "Hey, uh, about that. The legendary sword, it means he can't heal, right? So does that have an effect?" The DM flounders for a bit, reading his notes. "Ah no, he's not healing, it's an entirely new form." Right. So he found this stat block online, a conversion of a Wormskull Horror from Earthdawn. Mm, homebrew, that could be trouble. And it's nasty. It gives us all a mystical Mark. I ask what that does, and he hands me a notecard. "Creatures marked by the Horror can be scryed upon freely for a year and a day; the Horror can use a creature marked by it as the source of any of it's powers". Ok, that's really not good. The creature also has some other odd powers like "Corrupt Karma", where if you spend an Action Point, it can curse you, an At-Will Interrupt where it can simply make another At-Will power do nothing (remember, at this point, At-Wills is pretty much all we have), and an At-Will Dominate (of course). The Sorcerer gets Dominated into attacking the Ranger, and he rolls a critical hit. He's an Elementalist Sorcerer and hadn't yet used his Encounter that lets him increase his damage. The DM decides "oh yeah, you have to use that too". Erases the Ranger. It's getting down to the wire and soon I'm basically the last one left standing. It's dazed so it can't use it's goofy interrupt. I attack and roll a 20, thinking, thank the dice Gods, it should die now and we'll succeed." The DM says "nope, it has hit points left", and it then kills me. That's it, TPK, game over. Naturally, we're all steamed. "Well, you weren't supposed to fight it, you were supposed to run away. I don't know why you all just kept trying to win." "One, this wasn't telegraphed to us at all that it was unbeatable. I mean, we have the legendary weapon, right?" "Oh well, there's still 2 more pieces to find." "And two, we couldn't run." "Huh, why?" "You made it so that anywhere we go, for the next year, this thing can attack us with it's powers. And it can attack anyone nearby it with it's powers, making us a threat to anyone we come into contact with. So what, our option is to run and go hide in a cave for a year and hope it doesn't just kill us at will?" "Uh...well...it wouldn't do that. Besides, it can't scry on you, that's why you have the sword!" The DM replies. "He can't scry on ME, yes. Nothing about the sword prevents him from scrying on anyone else. So we had to fight, and you saying it wouldn't abuse it's bs power doesn't mean anything to our characters. If you wanted us to feel like we could run, you should have altered the power or not used it." "Well, I mean, this boss is super important to the storyline, I couldn't let you kill it now anyways." "Oh so instead, to save your oh-so-precious story boss, you killed all the player characters. Well have fun with your story." And I stood up and walked out. And everyone followed me. There's no real moral here, other than some of the advice I give new DM's. First, the campaign cannot be more important than the players, or you may end up going through many players and run the risk of having no campaign. Two, if you don't want something to happen, don't let it be a possibility. If you don't want your super cool BBEG to die early, or to have the players TPK, don't put them in a situation where they fight each other! Have the BBEG teleport away cheaply or something, lol. *I have no doubt others will say they have experienced worse, and it's probably true. But this was the lowest point for everyone who was at that table. [/QUOTE]
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